Florida governor signs death warrant for man who killed woman in 1995

April 16 (UPI) -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed the death warrant for a man convicted of killing a 34-year-old mother of two in 1995 in a southern Hillsborough County motel room.

The Republican governor signed the death warrant for 62-year-old Glen Rogers on Tuesday, setting his execution for 6 p.m. EDT on May 15. It is the fifth death warrant DeSantis has signed so far this year.

Rogers, a so-called drifter suspected of being responsible for several killings around the country, was convicted of first-degree murder in May 1997 for the stabbing death of Tina Marie Cribbs. He was sentenced to death in the case that July.

According to court records, Cribbs was with friends at a bar in Gibsonton, located about 15 miles south of Tampa, on Nov. 5, 1995, when she met Rogers, who was staying at a nearby motel. Witnesses reported them leaving the bar together.

Her body was found two days later in the motel's bathtub. Cribbs had been stabbed to death.

Police were then on the lookout for Cribbs' white Ford Festiva, which Rogers was believed to have stolen.

On Nov. 13, the vehicle was spotted by police in Kentucky. When they attempted to pull it over, Rogers led them on a high-speed chase that gained national attention when his arrest was captured by a television crew.

Rogers received a second death sentence in 1999, this time in California. He was convicted of strangling Sandra Gallagher to death a month before killing Cribbs.

He similarly met Gallagher at a bar -- this one in Los Angeles -- and they left together after she offered him a ride.

Her body was later found in a burning truck behind the bar where Gallagher and Rogers had met.

Rogers has been accused of killing several others.

During the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson, Rogers was presented by the attorneys for the disgraced football star as a potential suspect in the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in June 1994.

The 2012 TV documentary My Brother the Serial Killer about Rogers alleges that he admitted to killing Brown and Goldman and was paid $20,000 for the crime by Simpson.

Florida has already killed three death row inmates this year with a fourth -- Jeffrey Hutchinson -- scheduled for May 1.

There have been a total of 12 executions so far this year across the United States, with 32 scheduled in 2025 across nine states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Source: UPI, Darryl Coote, April 16, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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